Another anecdote: When I had to go to the hospital for a few days, I returned to my parents’ home where they were taking care of my dog. I got settled on the couch and she came and sat right in front of me and kept offering her paw for me to hold. Even though I’d only been gone for four or five days, she didn’t leave me for at least 2 1/2 hours. She kept alternately lying down in front of the couch and rising up to give me her paw.
I dated a guy who had a dog and he didn’t treat his dog very well , and my b/c complained that his dog didn’t bark to warn him of anything. The dog took a liking to me and I had to buy gas and the dog was in my car , he wouldn’t let the
gas station attendant near my car ! I had to pump my own gas . So I guess some dogs do pick you they care about.
The faithfulness and affection of a dog to its owner is recognised and forms a poignant scene in the epic poem Homer’s Odyssey, composed nearly three thousand years ago.
Odysseus returns home after twenty years, where many suitors are hoping to marry his wife. He is disguised as a beggar and no-one recognises him except for his old dog Argos, who is now neglected and lying on a pile of cow manure, infested with lice, old and very tired. On seeing Odysseus, the dog “dropped his ears and wagged his tail, but he could not get close up to his master”. Odysseus cannot acknowledge the dog as it will reveal his identity, whereupon Argos “passed into the darkness of death, now that he had fulfilled his destiny of faith and seen his master once more after twenty years”.
Here is the full passage:
[spoiler]As they were speaking, a dog that had been lying asleep raised his head and pricked up his ears. This was Argos, whom Odysseus had bred before setting out for Troy, but he had never had any enjoyment from him. In the old days he used to be taken out by the young men when they went hunting wild goats, or deer, or hares, but now that his master was gone he was lying neglected on the heaps of mule and cow dung that lay in front of the stable doors till the men should come and draw it away to manure the great close; and he was full of fleas. As soon as he saw Odysseus standing there, he dropped his ears and wagged his tail, but he could not get close up to his master. When Odysseus saw the dog on the other side of the yard, dashed a tear from his eyes without Eumaeus seeing it, and said:
‘Eumaeus, what a noble hound that is over yonder on the manure heap: his build is splendid; is he as fine a fellow as he looks, or is he only one of those dogs that come begging about a table, and are kept merely for show?’
‘This dog,’ answered Eumaeus, ‘belonged to him who has died in a far country. If he were what he was when Odysseus left for Troy, he would soon show you what he could do. There was not a wild beast in the forest that could get away from him when he was once on its tracks. But now he has fallen on evil times, for his master is dead and gone, and the women take no care of him. Servants never do their work when their master’s hand is no longer over them, for Zeus takes half the goodness out of a man when he makes a slave of him.’
So saying he entered the well-built mansion, and made straight for the riotous pretenders in the hall. But Argos passed into the darkness of death, now that he had fulfilled his destiny of faith and seen his master once more after twenty years.
—Homer, Odyssey, Book 17, lines 290-327
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I’m interested in checking out some of these links. I’ve had dogs almost all of my life, and will get another one when my current 8-yr old passes.
But I’m not entirely sure how one can parcel out “emotion” o/b/o my dog, as opposed to their behavior as a pack animal respecting the higher status members of the pack, and their attempts to derive certain benefits from their pack fellow pack members. You all know the argument - how much of HUMAN emotions can be considered to confer evolutionary advantage? I then to think the answer is not binary.
I tend to want to THINK that my dog loves me, but what he might really be loving is the fact that I feed him regularly and provide him a safe, comfortable place to live. If a dog loves its owner, does a wolf love its higher ranked pack members?
I think it pretty clear than animals are not unfeeling automatons. But I did quite a bit of reading on this over the years, and have discussed this quite a bit with my wife of 30 years and co-owners of at least 5 dogs. And I’m not sure what amount of the dog’s behavior is affection, as opposed to manipulative/goal oriented.
In my opinion, yes, your dog loves you and a pack wolf loves its pack leader.
I hope that it’s not too cynical to point out that for most of us humans, real life love involves significant degrees of self-interest, often severely modified by cultural expectations.
It’s like that old college chestnut, “is it really possible for someone to perform selfless acts”. This always devolves into quibbles about the value of various secondary gains an individual gets from whatever good deed is considered.
I think most adults eventually adopt a relatively unsophisticated but pragmatic view: sure real life love is messy and not pure, but so what? You just do your best and power through, and try not to look under too many logs.
I assure you, if your dog is most attached to you (as opposed to another family member) and it seems to love you , your dog loves you more than probably anything in the world, and it probably loves you more completely than anyone you know does.
For this discussion, I argue that “pretty is as pretty does”.
If it is indistinguishable from love, then it is love.
Do humans feel love?
If human beings feel love, then dogs feel love.
Some really nice sentiments there, and I agree.
I should perhaps add that we have to be conscious of not anthropomorphizing dogs and regarding them as human, because they’re not (I understand that neither of you are doing this, I’m just making that point) but that’s not a fault but simply a difference. To attribute to dogs the character of humanity does a disservice to both, and obscures the fact that each has admirable traits that would benefit the other.
I should also mention that my comment in #2 about Bernese Mountain Dogs bonding for life was not meant to single out the Bernese and just came from my deep affection for my own beloved Bernese, and there’s no doubt that all breeds have some element of this, perhaps some even more.
How is it made apparent? Every sign of love that humans show, dogs show, too. If we’re willing, based on those signs, to conclude that humans “really” love, then we should conclude that dogs do, too.
Humans are capable of loving someone even if that means not being a part of their lives. I don’t think dogs can do that.
To understand how much a dog can love their owner, and that it goes beyond treats, all you have to do is read the story of Hachikō, the famous Japanese dog that kept going to meet his owner at the train station for 8 years after his owner died. The dog went back to the same exact spot that the owner was supposed to meet him at, hoping to see him get off the train every single day. And the children of the man did try to adopt him but he ran away and went back to the station. He had to keep looking for his owner. So sad.
Some dogs are more loyal than others I had a border collie that didn’t want anyone else to walk him except for me and my partner. His favorite toy was a frisbee and if someone else threw it, besides me or my partner, he wouldn’t fetch it. Whenever I left him at the kennel the people said he never warmed up to them, they threw the frisbee at him and it just hit him in the head and fell to the ground. Just moped all day and didn’t want to go for walks. That’s why its so sad when you see a dog at a pound, desperately looking at the door hoping the next person that walks in is the owner coming back to get them. Dogs are full of love its people who aren’t disloyal or unloving.
I have two border collies now, and they both have different attitudes. One likes to be walked by other people especially men, I guess he feels more alpha with a man walking him. The other one, if I hand a leash over to someone will walk with them reluctantly but keeps looking back at me and wanting to get away.
Well, yeah. They never call or write either.
And my dog has never, ever bought me a nice treat at the store.
Ungrateful curs! 
If you accept that premise, then there is are logical consequences. Either “really loving” evolved (at least) twice independently, or the common ancestor of humans and dogs (along with all descendants of that ancestor) “really loved.” That common ancestor lived around 90 to 100 million years ago. So you would need to accept that at least the blue group and the green group “really love.”
Chew on that.
I do not know which of those conclusions is correct, but I am comfortable with either of them (with the caveat that it’s possible that some of our cousin species secondarily lost or diminished the capability for love).
To the extent that that’s true, I think it’s more due to a lack of understanding, not to a lack of love, and while dogs do have a great deal of understanding, as animals go, I won’t attempt to claim that they understand to the same degree that humans do. Though I would even question the premise: There have, after all, been cases of dogs sacrificing their lives for those they loved, and dying is the extreme case of not being a part of one’s life.
Well, yeah, but I don’t think anyone’s suggesting here that dogs have any concept of their own mortality.
I’d rather go the other way and point out that it’s moderately exceptional for humans to show their love that way.
I also don’t know how many here are suggesting that dogs have the emotional depth and complexity of adult humans. I’m certainly not. I’m just arguing that they (and other mammals) do a lot of their thinking on an emotional level.
To the extent that love includes wanting to be around someone, wanting to please someone, and subordinating your naked self interest and immediate desires to someone else, than dogs do seem to love.
Lots of other mammals do, too.
I’m sure we’ll here the same from bird fanciers. I really think we are talking very basic limbic brain here.
I don’t have a strong problem with the possibility of dogs feeling love, but I have gigantic problems with the idea of dogs having a concept of personal mortality.
This dog was reunited with his owner after TWO YEARS. I like how the dog is shy until he smells Daddy’s hand, then he’s all up in his face.
They know. It’s love.
Well, if that dog really loved him, he wouldn’t have stepped on his balls and licked him all over the face with the same tongue he uses to lick his privates. Maybe an acrostic poem would be more in order. 
DesertRoomie had a dog that I would say loved her. Three days after he was born, when she would kneel by the whelping pan he would leave his mother and crawl over to the side where she was kneeling. Now, at three days his eyes were not even open yet so we’re not sure how he sensed her presence, but sense it he did. None of the rest of the litter of nine would do that, and he did not respond when I was by the pan.
Similar to your story, when he was grown there were times – not just when she was feeling unwell – he would come over to her and offer his paw. The unique part was he would do this when she was reading or sitting at the computer. He would put his paw on her hand so that it was over her index metacarpal knuckle with the knuckle in the space between his main pad and the toe pads. Then he’d flex his toes, squeezing the knuckle ever so slightly. Lacking a thumb, it was the closest he could get to holding her hand.
Dogs have a sense of their own personal mortality to the extent that they recognize dangerous situations and react with fear to them. Like, for instance, most dogs (not counting terriers, because they’re insane) upon encountering, say, a bear, would back down, because they rightly fear the bear. But a dog accompanying a loved one (puppy, human, whatever) who encounters the same bear might instead fight it off, likely losing in the process, but giving the loved one the opportunity to escape.